By GWENDOLYN WEILER
Moapa Valley Progress
There’s a hum of noise in the library at Grant M. Bowler Elementary as teachers engage with each other in a Design Thinking workshop held Wednesday, August 8. The workshop was led by Michael Lang, a Las Vegas elementary school teacher and PBS Digital Innovator.
Bowler principal Shawna Jessen invited Lang to come to the school in an effort to help the teachers grasp and implement the school’s new status as a Design Thinking Academy.
“He’s a teacher-leader in our field who knows how to bring those 21st century skills into the classrooms,” Jessen said.
Lang said his objectives were to familiarize the teachers with Design Thinking and how it can be applied in the classroom.
“Any time you change the system, there’s a little bit of unfamiliarity that makes you uncomfortable,” Lang said. “Design Thinking is a different way to look at things, but I think that most teachers find some similarities with the things that I share in my presentation and what they’re already doing.”
Summer Whitney, a second-grade teacher, admits she was feeling overwhelmed by the new program prior to Lang’s presentation. “I think a lot of us went in there thinking, ‘Oh my gosh. How are we going to do this? This is a whole other lesson I have to put together,’” Whitney said. “But now, it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can integrate this into what I’m already doing.’”
Marianne Eckenstam, who teaches the Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program at Bowler, said, “One of the cool things of his presentation is that he demonstrated that this is already out there—it’s not new. This is what our kids are going to be doing in their lifetimes. This is the process that professionals use.”
Lang said these are the kinds of teacher breakthroughs that help him know that he’s making a difference by giving back to his profession. “These are seasoned teachers who take pride in the way they do things, and giving them another lens they can see their work through tends to get some A-has! by the end of our time together.”
Design Thinking incorporates all the ideas of the recent STEM/STEAM educational craze, said Eckenstam, but goes far beyond Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.
“What we’re doing is we’re changing the way we think about how students learn, and in turn it’s going to change the way our teachers think about the way they teach,” Jessen said. “This is 100 percent focused on the kids—not standards, not testing, not anything—just them learning for the sake of learning.”
Michael Lang is a 2018-19 Teach Plus Nevada Teaching Policy Fellow. He teaches technology at Laura Dearing Elementary in Las Vegas and is a teacher leader for Employee Onboarding, an Apple Distinguished Educator, and a PBS Digital Innovator. He has been teaching for sixteen years, and said he enjoys giving back to the teaching profession he loves.
“I always enjoyed other practitioners sharing their success with me, and I always try to do the same,” Lang said.
